The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has released an advisory for all AI developers; failure to comply will incur legal action.
Who are we more afraid of? The technological marvels that AI creates or the humans who control it? Do we need proper regulations to control something that can make something that never existed before? Before we delve into an answer, let’s consider what Leonardo, a leading Italian Defence company, thinks about it.
In an interview with CNBC, Roberto Cingolani, Leonardo's CEO, highlighted humanity's history of conflict, "To be honest, what concerns me more is the lack of control from humans, who are still making wars after 2,000 years." Cingolani also looked down on the imagery of AI that the world has created, as he believes that even Generative AI is a tool created by humans, runs on machines made by humans, and controls tasks made for humans.
Amid the chaotic opinions surrounding AI, the latest regulations introduced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) bring more backlash from the tech community. MeitY’s diktat mandates tech companies working on any artificial intelligence product to get a nod from government bodies before launching it for public access.
Tech experts and top legal professionals are pushing to remove this rule, as it will become a highly loss-making and unnecessary process to get every update in the AI world approved by the government authorities. This would restrict the companies from functioning smoothly and can cause unprecedented halts in business-client interactions.
Tech players will require labeling under-trial AI to seek approval and create extended labels like ‘under-testing’ or ‘unreliable’ before releasing them to the general public. The companies must also get explicit consent from users to provide access to their AI products.
With the government bodies regulating the developments in the AI sector, both positive and negative trends may follow. On one hand, the world may save itself from global incidents like Deepfake videos. On the other hand, the steep rise of AI companies would not remain as high anymore.
Going back to the question of who we should be more afraid of, the right answer for now would be - None. As users, we must reject innovations that the tech giants bring without proper backing. Even with the regulations, the black market still functions properly without retraces or actionable proof. The only people facilitating these innovations are the general public.
